James Binney receives the Occhialini award in Rome

30 September 2015

The Occhialini Medal and Prize was presented to Prof. James Binney in Rome on 21 September by the Institute of Physics’ incoming president-elect, Prof. Dame Julia Higgins.

Higgins presented the silver medal and the prize of €3000 during the 101st National Congress of the Italian Physical Society, which confers the award jointly with the IOP. The award is made in even-dated years to a physicist who is based in Italy and in odd-dated years to a physicist based in the UK or Ireland. Following the presentation, Higgins gave a brief address to the congress.

Binney, a professor of physics at the University of Oxford, received the award for “his work on galaxy dynamics, in particular for developing an understanding of how galaxies exchange gas with the intergalactic medium and how this exchange controls the evolution of galaxy morphology”.

Binney is a fellow of the Royal Society, a fellow of the IOP, and winner of the IOP’s Dirac Medal and Prize in 2010.